A friend just sent me a video of a reality tv show style YouTube series about youth wrestling and told me to skip to a few parts with parents. I watched an 11 year old kid pin a former state champion and proceed to get yelled at by his dad because "he didn't spend all this time for a 30 second match." Cue to the kid balling and the parent yelling at him more.
I skimmed the rest of the videos and, surprise, surprise, that kid gets emotional in every match. And the dad sits on the mat, yelling at him. And they interview the dad and he's like "I don't know why he's always crying, he's such a Martha." He then explains he nicknames his kid Martha because he thinks he's a pussy.
Like gee, maybe the kid is under an intense amount of stress because he has no idea how to make your dumbass happy.
Youth sports is insane. When I was a kid, my parents basically forced me to go to basketball tournaments off season and I fucking hated it. You felt like you had to go because everyone else was going and then you get sideline coached/yelled at by your parents.
I love how younger generations are always classified by older generations as "lazy" or "wusses" or whatever. You're the ones raising them you fucks.
Maybe stop living through your kid and let them choose what they want to do. I quit basketball after sophomore year and was instantly happier. If your kid likes a sport they're going to end up hating it because of you.
Thank you for listening to my Ted talk.
A couple of years ago I saw a single mom screaming at her kids to play harder at a soccer game, like threatening them with no screen time if they didn’t play more aggressively. I’m pretty sure she had the least money out of anyone there and I just assumed that she wanted them to play well so that they could get a scholarship or something but honestly I have no idea. The soccer coach is generally pretty laid back (because the kids were fucking eight years old) and sent out an email to everyone the next day asking parents to chill out at the soccer games. This mother’s kids just like gave up in the middle of the game because all the screaming was clearly demoralizing them but their mom wouldn’t stop.
I enjoyed soccer as a kid but quit as soon as people started taking it seriously. Around that time I switched to running on my own and I’ve been doing that ever since. If I could do a 5k in 18 minutes I think that would be pretty fucking awesome.